Maybe I should have phrased it as a lack of urgency when has the ball in space....

Batson will be interesting. Bit of unkown quantity altough i thought he looked like a good mover in his limited time last year in the Bullants Seniors when i watched him a couple of times.

It would be interesting to know if Batson playing Bullants reserves is simply for development reasons due to limited time with Bryan, Deluca and McLaren in the Bullants Seniors?

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

Just logged in to this thread for a minute whilst playing "Freecell",common denominator being that it is valuable time wasted that cannot be recouped.

Lies - you should see my freecell stats. Awesome.

Life would be dull without futility DOA, I mean that's why your boy gets (or will get) paid big bucks. No point ruining others fun in this case.

This is what I thought but all reports seem to have him playing predominantly at FF, surely if he was half a ruckmen he'd be able to dominate at VFL ressie level

That's like taking 5 cards playing draw poker. If you're very, very lucky it might come off, but chance are you'll just end up back where you started. It's just not smart.

We can't just chuck out half the list for untried talent. Sure it might feel good to get rid of everyone that's frustrated us this year and have 15 draft picks, who knows we might get 3 guns and 5 handy players. But odds are we won't.

We need to keep turning the list over, but we can't do it in one year. Wiggins, Carrazzo and Bentick are 3 young players who have shown plenty this year. There is plenty of room on our list to give them more time to show what they're capable of. It would be idiocy for Carlton to delist youngsters who are improving and have already been regular firsts players this year.

And we're going find better somewhere? Not likely. Not low in the draft and I would say not in the trading area. Every side has players with deficencies. No way I'd trade thses players.

There are three areas on our list that really give us massive concern. I will list them in what I think is the order of importance.

On-ball/Midfield - When comparing our boys to most of the on-ball brigades in the competition, we fall well short. We have an ageing champion in Kouta who has played the inside role for a few years but is becoming more of a liability every game as his direct opponents work off him and he cant cover defensively. Probably his last month of AFL anyways. We have Bentick who can play this role but I don't think he has really proven he can cut it. He has deficiencies. And we lack fast, pacy running types who can break away. There are a few up and comers but no-one that has shown anything more than promise. That's why I still have Gibbs as the preferred recruit if we have the choice. Bryce and a couple of quick on-ballers would be a good start. I am of the school of thought that midfield is the most important area on the ground and being the best here will win games.

Rucks - We are really struggling in this area. Choosing between Deluca and Bryan as back-ups is not a solution as both aren't up to it and will be gone by 2008. Mclaren is a pinch-hitter at best. French is struggling and has more bad games than good ones. Batson is not doing enough. Aisake still a LONG-term prospect. This is a very bad prognosis. I think it is crucial that the club push hard to trade for or recruit a ready-made ruckman in the PSD. I would even contemplate Gardiner! That's how bad the situation is. There is really no confidence with our current crop, at least in the short to medium term (bar Aisake)

Defence - Faced with the prospect of selecting Hansen, anyone would not say no. He is a once in ten year recruit, ala Reiwoldt, Kosi (in terms of quality, not what position they play). However, if it was still between him and Gibbs, I would go Gibbs. The club, faced with the need to recruit defensive KP's in the last 2 years, chose a couple of prospects for this are in Hartlett and Bower. Recruiting a Hansen, suddenly one of these two surplus. Bower has shown he may be more of a running HBF type but I believe with some more muscle, he might command a defensive KP position in a couple of years time. I think that given the club made these recruiting choices then they should give both the opportunity. Hartlett needs to learn the defensive game as we have a dedicated CHF in Kennedy and enough players who can do the HFF, floating role.

We wont be able to completely address these deficiencies completely in one draft but lets hope some decent progress is made! A PP would still be handy BTW

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C'mon Blueboys!

You forgot Murphy and Hansen

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